won't stop running till we reach the sun
by summertimesadness
Summary: a collection of finchel drabbles. ratings vary by chapter.
1. she picked the colors from the air

**These are a collection of Finchel drabbles that I write from time to time and I figured I would put them somewhere. (: Some of them are slightly more AU than others and they aren't in any particular chronological order, but I'll be posting them here as I write them. **

**i.  
she picked the colors from the air**

Rachel didn't like all of the classes she had to take for her schooling. There were the ones she loved, like music theory and vocal performance and acting studies (she was starting to adjust to liking her dance class), but then there were the ones she dreaded every time she had to go to them.

Drawing was one of them.

Apparently, a NYADA student needed to be a "well-rounded artist," so taking a visual arts class was a necessity. By the time she had enrolled for all of her classes, however, photography was filled, so she was left with the one option she considered tolerable; drawing.

The class wasn't too horrible, but it wasn't the most fun in the entire world. It was filled with students like herself who needed to fulfill the credit, but there will still some who enjoyed drawing and trying to make inanimate objects look as real as they possibly could on a piece of paper with a pencil.

The class was monotonous and dreary and all she wanted was for it to be over so she wouldn't have to take it anymore.

"So you need to be able to draw a bowl of fruit?" Finn asked her one day, lying across her bed. He was bored; throwing a ball up into the air and catching it back in his hand once more (minding that it didn't crash into the blades of the ceiling fan that spun over her bed).

Rachel rolled her eyes and looked at Finn from the desk in the corner of her room before returning back to work. She had to complete ten still life sketches by her next class, and so far she only had three. The bowl of fruit was going unsuccessful so far, but with any hope it would be better than the stack of books on the kitchen counter and the tree in Central Park that she had attempted at drawing days earlier.

"I need to draw plenty of other things, too," she told him, grumbling slightly. She looked like she had been run down to the bone and wasn't dressed in her normal, happy attire. Her hair had been thrown up in a sloppy half ponytail, her bangs hanging in her eyes, and she wore one of Finn's sweaters with a pair of leggings and wool socks. The only thing that had kept her up for the past few days were the cups of coffee Kurt would run in from time to time if he thought about it or wasn't busy working.

Finn looked at her and sighed, rolling off of the bed and walking up behind her in her little swivel chair, placing his hands on her shoulders.

"You stress yourself out too much, Rach," he warned her, rubbing his hands into her shoulders and feeling her melt into him. "I mean, you can always draw your pictures some other time, right?"

She grumbled something under her breath that she didn't even know the meaning of and turned her head over her shoulder, dropping her pencil and grabbing one of Finn's hands with her own.

"You don't help, you know." She smiled and spun her chair around so she could wrap her arms around him, holding him in what would be an awkward hug if it had been with anyone else. She sighed and could feel his hand run through her hair, prompting her to look up and smile at him.

The more she looked at her boyfriend, the more the idea began to solidify in her head.

She could totally do this and get away with it. She knew that as much as Finn would protest that in the back of his head, it would totally make him feel like he was some kind of based god or something.

"Hey," she said, standing up from her chair and looking at Finn with a smile. She stood in front of him and bit down on her bottom lip, resting her hands against his chest. "Do you want to make this a little bit more fun for me?" She paused, tipping her head up to look at him up through her eye lashes.

"For both of us?"

Finn looked down at her, somewhat confused, although he knew that every time Rachel started acting like this that it usually ended up in sex, so he wasn't too concerned about anything that she had in mind.

"Why, what is it?" He smiled down at her and she giggled, standing up on her toes so she could speak to him with more ease.

"Strip down and lie on the bed."

He looked at her and felt his face begin to pink. This was not the Rachel he was used to being around. True, there were times when she was the one that instigated everything and pinned him against walls and whispered things in his ear to get him all hot and bothered, but he couldn't tell if that was what she wanted this time.

"Rach, are you sure-"

"I didn't say you could speak," she told him. "I just want you to get naked and lie on the bed."

Finn furrowed his brow and looked at Rachel, his mouth hanging open slightly. "Rach, you know, if you want to… fool around, or whatever, it kind of helps if you're naked too."

She rolled her eyes and looked at him once more before returning to her desk for her sketchbook and pencil.

"I don't want to fool around with you," she corrected him. "Well, at least not right now."

(Finn couldn't help but smile at that remark.)

"I want to draw you for my assignment."

He could have sworn that his stomach had tied itself into every knot he had learned in Scouts and his heart had stopped beating.

"Rachel, you can't be serious." He watched her as she stuck her pencil between her teeth and began studying him like he was a statue. "I mean… I don't exactly look like those Greek statues or whatever."

She laughed and ran up to him, kissing him on the cheek. "I know. But I don't either. Now take off your clothes and do as I say."

He slowly started pulling his sweater over his head and threw it to the ground, followed by his undershirt. If anything, she could draw him just like that.

"How's this, then?" He asked, hoping she wouldn't shake her head 'no' and demand that he removed his pants.

"No," she told him, her voice all light and sing-songy. "I want it all off. I need to draw _you_, Finn, not just you without your shirt on." She walked up to him and rested her hands against his chest, feeling him shiver as she touched him.

"Take it off. _Now._"

Finn carefully undid the fly of his jeans and stepped out of them, and figured he would ask once more when he was in his boxers if he could just have her draw him the way he was, but she shook her head defiantly and in one fell swoop, they were pooled around his ankles.

Rachel couldn't help but blush at the sight of her boyfriend standing stark naked in front of her and hid er face behind her sketchpad.

"What?" He asked, sitting at the foot of her bed. "It's not like it's anything you haven't seen before."

She smiled and looked at him, taking her pencil to her sketchpad.

"I know," she said. "That's why I'm drawing you. Now stop talking."

Finn sat on the bed nervously and carefully tried to arrange her sheets so that they covered his more conspicuous areas. She didn't need to draw that, and besides – he wasn't even sure if she was going to draw him to proportion.

He was still a guy. He was allowed to worry about things like that.

Rachel would look up from her sketchpad from time to time, biting down on her lip and smiling at him mischievously.

Minutes passed that felt like hours to Finn as he watched Rachel continue to draw and make lines on her paper, studying him carefully as he sat at the foot of her bed.

"Almost done… there," Rachel finally announced, carrying her sketchpad over to Finn where she stood in front of him before climbing into his lap and straddling him with her legs.

Finn could have sworn that God was punishing him for something he had done by having her sit in his lap like that. It was horrible in the best way horrible could ever be.

"Let me see it," he told her, grabbing the pad from her hands as she stabilized herself in his lap. He wrapped one arm around her waist to keep her in his lap and the other took hold of her notepad, staring at it intently.

On the piece of paper was a stick figure who wore a huge grin on its face. It looked nothing like Finn.

"You think you're going to pass your class with this?" Finn asked, laughing as Rachel began to giggle.

"I like to think that this one's specifically for me," she boasted, pressing a chaste kiss to his lips. "I don't think it was that bad, was it?"

Finn smiled and looked at her before narrowing his eyes and staring at her.

"Yeah," he said, pushing her off of his lap slightly. "It means I get to draw you."

Rachel looked at him incredulously while biting back a smile.

"Strip down and lie on the bed, Rachel Berry."


	2. hit me with your best shot

**ii.  
hit me with your best shot**

She looks up at him from her book and doesn't say anything. Her eyes can speak volumes louder than any words can. Especially with Finn.

Ever since they've gotten an apartment together and they're living together as real adults, Finn hasn't exactly been the textbook definition of 'mature.'

"I wouldn't if I were you," she warns him, not taking her eyes away from her book. She's already read Judy Garland's memoirs three times, but each time she reads it she has some new piece of information to tell Kurt over breakfast one morning,

Finn just looks at her with this big dopey grin, and she has to reconsider why they've even moved in with one another in the first place. He's so immature.

But that's why she loves him.

"Come on, Rach." He grabs his pillow out from underneath him and holds it in his hands eagerly, grinning wider than she's ever seen him grin before. "Didn't you do this at sleepovers all of the time?"

She rolls her eyes and sets her book down in her lap, sighing. It's almost eleven and she has rehearsal in the morning and he has work and she's trying to read before she falls asleep, and her boyfriend wants to have a pillow fight. With her.

"You are incorrigible," she tells him as she slides her bookmark into her book and sets it down on her nightstand. Rachel turns to face him and pulls the elastic from her hair, shaking her hair loose and looks at him, only really looks at him before carefully reaching behind her and grabbing a pillow.

"You know, this means war, Finn Hudson."

Finn smiles as she makes a face and looks like Clint Eastwood in one of those cowboy movies he's seen before, only she's way hotter in her nightgown and actually has boobs and stuff.

"And you know how competitive of a person I am."

He smiles at her and shifts on the bed, raising his own pillow above his head.

And then he hits her and she hits him back and it turns into one big frenzy of pillow throwing, Rachel's high pitched giggle heard above all of it.

Somewhere in the middle of all of it Rachel stands up on the bed in order to better match Finn's height and he grabs her by the ankles, pulling her back down onto the mattress.

She bounces down hard on her back, laughing as Finn crawls over her, grabbing her by the wrists and holding them on either side of her head.

"It looks like you've met your match, huh?" He asks her before leaning down to kiss her, his hands letting go of her wrists to brush her hair away from her eyes.

She kisses him back and feels his forehead against hers as her holds his face close to her own, her nose scrunching up against his.

"Maybe," she says, and she knows that she's telling the truth. Maybe Finn's the perfect partner in a pillow fight, and maybe he's the perfect partner for everything else.

She knows that he is, though. He's always been the perfect everything.


	3. tequila makes her clothes fall off

**iii.  
tequila makes her clothes fall off**

Ok, so he knows that he's supposed to be keeping an eye on her, since this can be one of those nights where if you don't do it right, you could die. He's seen the stories on the news about people who turn twenty one and do a bunch of Jell-O shots and then drink themselves to death.

That, and he knows that if she passes out he's going to have to be the one to carry her back to their apartment – and more importantly, he's going to be one that has to listen to her bitch and moan about how bad her headache is and how he was supposed to make sure that she didn't have too much to drink.

But he's seen her drunk before, and he hasn't seen her like that since that one time she tried to throw a rager in her basement their junior year.

And now, Rachel's drunker than ever and doing things that she would never, ever do if she were sober.

"I thought Rachel's drinking years were behind her," Santana says snidely, sipping from her martini in the corner. Everyone's come to New York to this one club by Finn and Rachel's apartment to celebrate her twenty-first birthday, and so far it's been a success.

Finn looks at Santana and sighs, rolling his eyes slightly. "Yeah, well, she said that she wasn't going to do it again until tonight, and, well-"

He stops to see Rachel teeter up to him in the heels Kurt's bought her for her birthday, her drink sloshing around in her hand.

She's wearing this dress that Santana's picked out for her and bought her for her birthday that basically looks like it's been painted on her, shimmering like a disco ball and shorter than anything he's ever seen her in. It's more

like a birthday present to him, seeing her in it and everything, but he doesn't tell Rachel that. She would think that was sexist and reprimand him for it or something.

"Hi Santana!" She's practically screaming over the loud bass beat of the music that fills the club, pausing to take a long sip of her drink. Finn feels like he's standing on pins and needles now that Rachel's standing in front of Santana, completely tanked.

"Hey there, Smurfette." Santana nurses her martini and picks the toothpick skewering the olive out from her glass. "You should eat this, Berry. If you don't get any food in your system, you're going to be upchucking all over the dance floor."

Rachel eagerly accepts the olive from Santana and takes it between her teeth, looking like she's swallowed it whole.

Finn just looks at her, not sure if he should be in shock or really proud that this is his girlfriend, wasted beyond belief and on what he's guessing is her third drink of the night.

"Santana, you should come dance with me," Rachel coos, reaching for Santana's hand as she sits in her bench up by the bar. Santana just crosses her legs and shakes her head, looking over at Finn.

"Why don't you ask your boyfriend to do that with you?" Finn turns his head and looks over at Santana, feeling his heart feel like it's going to pound out of his chest. He watches Rachel's eyes get big and he looks at her, feeling her tiny hands reach out for his own.

"Come dance with me, Finn," she gurgles, tossing her head back to finish her drink before setting it down on the counter.

It's like Rachel's magic and the music changes to some really loud, bass-driven rap song.

"Ooh, perfect!" He hears Santana shout from behind him before Rachel's able to fully pull him onto the dance floor. "Now you can have her grind all over you, Hudson." She tips her head back and she laughs before taking another sip from her martini.

Rachel just runs a hand through Finn's hair (she's tall enough to do that in the heels she's wearing) and pulls him by the hand to dance with her, giggling wildly.

Drunk Rachel is certainly one of his favorite flavors of Rachel.

-x-

So she's a really good dancer. And by dancer, he means that she's really good about grinding her ass into his lap and making him feel like he has to do everything in his arsenal to keep from tenting his pants.

She raises her hands up over her head and turns her head to face Finn, beginning to giggle at him.

"I love you," she says, practically shouting in his face. Finn's had his fair share to drink as well, but not as much as his girlfriend has. Besides, she's a five foot two package that hasn't had anything to drink, and he and Kurt have managed to have a plate of fries between the two of them.

She's crazy, the way she's dancing. Every time they go out and she's sober she always seems to turn her nose up at the girls who look like they're basically having sex on the dance floor, but now Rachel's the one performing a bump and grind routine in front of everyone in the club.

She grabs his hands and places them on her hips, leaning into his back and wrapping her arms around his neck.

He doesn't know what to say back to her besides a tentative 'Happy Birthday, Rach,' but it's quiet and she can't hear him over the music or the alcohol, it's really anybody's guess.

She turns her entire body around and she's facing him, her entire body plastered against him and rubbing up on him so much that he knows that he needs to either sit down or at least not have her touch him for a while.

One more move in the wrong direction and Rachel would make him have to end her party a hell of a lot earlier so he could go home and take a cold shower.

Rachel turns around and Finn can see Kurt telling her something (he's drunker than ever as well) before grabbing her by the hand and pulling her away from Finn.

She grabs onto Finn's hands so she doesn't desert him on the dance floor and tugs him along with her, turning over her shoulder to smile at him.

She's absolutely crazy when she's got all of that alcohol running through her system.

Rachel pulls him over to the bar where everyone they've come with his huddled in a circle around Rachel, who's standing over a large tray of what look to be shots of liquor.

_Great._

"Alright," he hears over the chatter and music of the nightclub. Santana's towering over everyone in the bar and standing on a step by the side of her barstool, looking down at Rachel. "On the count of three, Rachel's going to start her first birthday shot, and then from then on we count them down until we reach twenty-one, okay?"

Finn looks at Rachel, who turns her head back to face him, an eager smile on her face.

She's about to attempt twenty-one shots of booze – tequila, of all things.

Santana starts counting to three, and before he can keep track Rachel's downing her shots of tequila, a bitter look crossing her face each time she finishes one. The group around them counts the empty glasses as they pile up on the tray, but Finn stops her at her third shot.

She looks like she wants to throw up even though she has this giant smile on her face, and she looks like she's about to fall over. She's had way too much to drink and he's going to save her before she passes out or dies.

She's not Santana. Finn's pretty sure that Santana could drink twenty-one bottles of tequila if she tried.

"Alright, Rach," he says, swooping in to grab her by the waist. Rachel giggles and looks up at Finn, grabbing him by the hands and placing them on her hips once more. "I think you've had enough, don't you think?"

She smiles and turns around to face him.

"Whatever you want, Finn," she tells him, pressing her finger to his nose before leaning in for a kiss.

Her kisses definitely taste like tequila, but he doesn't really mind. He can still taste her strawberry lip gloss, the same lip gloss she's worn since high school, so he knows that she's not completely gone yet. Some small part of her still gets to be his.

Santana looks at the two of them and murmurs something to Brittany by her side, and before he can tell the difference between where they are at the bar and anywhere else, Rachel is pulling him off in another direction.

Finn swears he can hear their group of friends cheering, and he turns around and notices that Rachel's pulling him into the men's room of the club.

"Rach, what are you-"

She cuts him off with a long, sloppy kiss, her tongue pushing into his mouth and making him feel like every one of his appendages is on fire.

"I know that this is my birthday party, but I figured that you should get a present too," she says, grabbing him by the collar and yanking him into one of the stalls. She turns around and lets him stare at her while she latches the door shut, sauntering over to him in her drunken haze and pinning him up against a wall.

"Puck told me the other night that I needed to be more physical with you," she tells him, drumming her fingers against his chest.

Finn's in shock and before he can even start to construct a complete sentence he can feel her hands drop down to his belt, undoing it skillfully in her drunken condition.

"Rachel, maybe you shouldn't-"

"What, suck you off in the middle of a bathroom?" She giggles mischievously and Finn can't believe the words that are coming out of her mouth. She's either been spending more time than usual around Santana or this is just what happens when she gets extremely drunk. Either way, he's never heard it from her before.

She's got his pants pushed down his legs and her hands are resting against him through his boxers, her head tipped to the side.

"It's like my birthday present to you, baby."

He doesn't really understand her logic and reasoning and he's going to say something about it before she falls down to her knees and looks up at him, biting down on her lip eagerly.

Finn doesn't even know what the rest of his thought process is after _oh, God. _She's got her mouth wrapped around him and it's warm and wet and the way she looks up at him and looks into his eyes while her hand wraps around him is enough to make him want to scream.

She pauses for a moment and removes him from her mouth, making him groan and watch her stand up in front of him, her hands finding purchase on either side of her dress and pushing it down around her ankles, stepping out of it and looking up at him.

And then he can't breathe because they're in a public bathroom stall and she's standing in front of him in nothing but these skimpy little underwear that shouldn't even bother because they're so small and barely cover anything and her boobs are like, right in front of him.

"How's that?" She asks him, jutting her chest out in front of him before falling back down to her knees again.

He needs to get her drunk more often if this is what the result is.

Her hands take hold of him once more and she engulfs him with her mouth and he swears to God that Santana or someone else put something in her drinks that have made her this frisky. She manages to pump him with her hand while her mouth works around him, and he groans, his fingers wrapping themselves in her hair.

She looks up at him and removes him from her mouth only for a moment, licking him from base to tip. Her hand pumps him eagerly and Finn looks down at her, unsure as to what he's supposed to say to her.

She's amazing. He's _so_ glad she's going to let herself drink now.

She works her way around him one more time with her mouth and he can't believe that she can even fit all of him in there, but she keeps on swallowing and – _fuck._

She sucks softly until he's finished and she doesn't even wince like she normally does. He could definitely get used to drunk Rachel.

"Oh, my God, Rachel," he starts, but he doesn't even know how to finish that sentence. She's perfect. She's perfect whether she's sober or drunk, if he's telling the truth, but she turns into a feistier, sexier version of herself when she's drunk.

And he's not going to lie and say that he doesn't like it.

"Happy birthday to me," she says in his ear, still dressed in just her underwear and heels. Finn reaches down and grabs her behind, making her begin to giggle.

"You should put your dress back on," he reminds her with a kiss on the cheek. "You're too drunk to spend more time here."

She pouts and whimpers slightly before walking to her dress and slipping into it carefully.

He grabs her by the hand and helps her stumble out of the bathroom; still teetering around in her heels. He doesn't want her to fall or anything. It's her birthday, after all.

She holds onto his hand and presses a kiss to his cheek before he opens the door of the bathroom and leads her out of the room and back into the club. Her hand holds onto his tightly and as they walk out of the room, Santana, Brittany, Kurt and the rest of them are standing in front of the two of them.

Santana begins to snicker, holding a hand up to her face.

"What?" Finn asks, hoping that his pants aren't undone or anything. He looks down at himself and he's fine, but his eyes catch a glimpse of Rachel, resting her chin on his shoulder lovingly.

Her dress, with the big, glittery bow in the front, is backwards. Rachel's managed to pull her dress on backwards and her hair is disheveled, making it more than obvious of their activities in the bathroom.

"I take it you got a pretty good birthday present too, huh Hudson?" Santana looks at Rachel dress and Finn just looks at his girlfriend, smiling.

He loves her more than anything else in this moment. This so out-of-character moment for Rachel Berry that she'll hate when he mentions in the morning, but that he gets to enjoy for this one moment.

He wouldn't have her any other way.


	4. your love is my turning page

**This one is slightly more AU, but I found it in a Tumblr prompt and really wanted to write it! (: This one is for Jenna.**

**iv.  
your love is my turning page**

Rachel's always loved weddings. She loves watching the groom's expression when he sees the bride for the first time, and she loves admiring the bride's dress and she loves the bouquet toss at the end.

Her best friend gets married and she's the maid of honor, naturally. Quinn looks beautiful in her ivory gown and her veil that Rachel's adjusts moments before she walks down the aisle, and she's the one that gives her the last hug she'll receive as a single woman – before she weds her high school sweetheart and runs off to become one of the happiest people in the world.

Rachel isn't married yet. She isn't looking to be married yet. She's fostering her career before she lets a man get involved, which is the smartest thing to do. She doesn't need someone to sign checks with and make dinner for and to rub her feet when she gets back from rehearsal late and her feet hurt.

Marriage is something that's somewhere in her future, she just knows that it isn't coming any time soon.

-x-

Quinn gets married and the entire crowd applauds the new union, Rachel smiling at her friend and giving her hand one last squeeze before she walks down the aisle with her husband.

They've all gone to high school together; Quinn and Rachel and her husband, Puck. It makes Rachel smile at the fact that they've lasted that long and that they're finally getting married.

To most girls, getting married is like a fairytale, especially when you marry your boyfriend from high school.

Rachel doesn't want to marry her boyfriend from high school. He's not worth the suffering.

The rest of Quinn's bridal party are all girls that she's gone to college with, so Rachel doesn't spend much time talking to them. They're all beautiful and skinny and blonde with five and a half carat wedding rings on their hands already. It makes Rachel stick out like a sore thumb and she's happy when the receiving line ends and she can talk with the other friends she and Quinn have in common at the reception.

The music starts and Rachel's too busy making sure that everything at the reception is perfect instead of dancing.

She doesn't really want to dance, anyway. She doesn't have anyone to dance with, and although it would be rather endearing for her to dance with one of Quinn's younger cousins, she isn't in the mood.

Part of her still misses that feeling of security that comes with dancing with a man; his arms wrapped around her waist and her head rested against his chest, the silence between them deafening enough that she can hear his heart beating, his fingers fidgeting on her back and his hands slowly moving lower and lower on her back until they begin to find purchase on her behind.

She knows that it's wrong to miss those sorts of things, though. She doesn't need to _miss _Finn, because he missed out on her. At least that's what Santana tells her.

She keeps herself occupied by fixing floral arrangements and making sure that no one's stuck their finger in the cake in order to taste the icing, doing her best to look busy.

Everyone looks so happy and she knows that she looks happy; the same smile stuck on her face that she's been wearing all day because in reality, she is happy. She's happy for Puck and Quinn and she's happy that she gets to wear the little pink dress that the rest of her bridesmaids get to wear and she's happy that she gets to go to a wedding, because she loves weddings, but she's not really happy.

She hasn't been happy for seven years.

-x-

Quinn clears the dance floor to sit in the chair that's placed in the middle of the dance floor and sits down so that Puck can remove her garter, a spectacle on its own. Rachel giggles and blushes slightly as she watches, looking at Quinn and offering her a sheepish smile.

She's found people to mingle with now; Kurt and Blaine have shown up late to the reception and she's spent a good amount of time nursing a champagne flute and talking about New York with the two of them.

Rachel doesn't notice who catches the garter after Puck throws it into the crowd of single men in front of them. Even the heels that Quinn's ordered everyone in the bridal party to wear aren't high enough to boost her off the ground so that she can see the recipient of the lacy scrap of fabric.

Quinn then stands and prepares to throw her bouquet over her shoulder and Blaine gives Rachel an encouraging nudge to go into the mass of women even though she's the only bridesmaid to do so, so she does, standing towards the middle and placing an arm up, secretly hoping that she won't catch it.

She doesn't want to draw attention to the fact that she's single and at a wedding. For as much as she loves weddings, that's the one thing about them that sucks. Being single and being reminded that you still need to do all of this as you watch your friends find who they belong with and get married.

The bouquet gets thrown in the air and Rachel almost pulls her hand back down, but when she does, she realizes that she has it, right there in her hands.

The bouquet is in her hands; the pink roses and gardenias that she went to the florist to help Quinn pick out herself.

There's a blur of commotion and she can hear the DJ say something about the two lucky winners having to share a dance together.

Rachel looks at Kurt and Blaine and they both smile, making her eyes go wide.

They're right, in a way, since this could be a good opportunity for her to meet someone. Whoever caught the garter has to be single unless they were hoping for an opportunity to be the center of attention for two seconds, or something.

The crowd of men parts and Rachel swears that her eyes widen so much that they're about to pop out of her head.

Standing in front of her is Finn Hudson.

She turns her head over her shoulder and looks at Quinn, and Quinn knows, but she can't say anything before the song that they're supposed to dance to starts up and the crowd begins to applaud, clearing the dance floor for the two of them.

Rachel walks up to Finn, her eyes trained on her feet. Finn looks at her and she knows that he knows, but she doesn't say anything.

She looks up at him and bites down on her lip nervously, her hands clasped together tightly.

"You know, you don't have to do this," she tells him, her voice loud enough for him to hear but quiet enough so that the people around them aren't privy to what they're saying.

Finn looks down at her and she sighs, feeling his arms wrap around her waist, prompting her to bring her own arms up to his shoulders.

"You're blushing, Rachel Berry," he tells her, making her look up at him so she can hear him. He's smiling at her and she doesn't want to say anything in return, but the way he smiles at her somehow serves as a bandage for her battered heart.

It only stays that way for a while, however. She knows that he's just going to leave her again when this is over. It's just a dance, after all. She's doing it to humor her best friend.

"Please stop," she tells him, her voice quiet as she looks down again, doing everything in her power not to look into Finn's eyes. "We're not doing this because we want to. The fact that it's _us _out of everyone in this entire reception hall is just… it's… it's nothing." She has a hard time finding the words she wants to use and feels her mouth begin to dry out, like she has two giant cotton balls wedged in her cheeks.

She can hear him sigh and she doesn't want this, but she knows that he doesn't mind. He probably likes having his arms around her waist and at least having her at arm's length once more. He hasn't had it in a long time and she knows that he misses it.

She misses it too; she just doesn't want to admit to herself that she does. It's only because it's Finn and she knows that she's supposed to feel _something_, but she figures that she'll just be contradicting herself if she does.

They had tried to make things work and they did for a while, but after their argument it was like neither of them really cared anymore.

Rachel still cares. Telling him would make her feel like an idiot, but she still cares.

"Look, Rach, I'm sorry," he tells her, breaking the silence between them. She looks back up at him and part of her feels like he should be so lucky to have the opportunity to even speak to her, but she doesn't want to be an asshole about it.

Its Quinn's wedding, after all. It's supposed to be a joyous occasion.

"You know, I'll buy you a drink if you want, or-"

"It's an open bar."

She watches him as he looks at her, smirking slightly. He probably thinks it's funny or something that she's trying everything in her power to shoot him down.

"Well, I'll get you a drink, huh?"

She smiles and shakes her head, and it's the first time she's smiled at him all night.

The song that they're supposed to be dancing to slowly fades out and they're met with applause, to which Rachel smiles at.

"So, I take it that's a yes on the drink?"

Rachel smiles and lets her hands fall from his shoulders, walking over to the bar in front of him, Quinn's bouquet in hand.

She turns around and looks at Finn, placing her hands on her hips.

"You're coming, right?"

-x-

She stirs her drink around in her hand for a moment and takes a sip, not wanting to imbibe in enough champagne to make her tipsy.

She turns into a different person when she's drunk and she certainly doesn't need to turn into that person as long as Finn's around.

"So you're Quinn's maid of honor," Finn says, taking a sip from his drink. He's ordered a scotch, which surprises her.

It's actually amusing to see everyone she knows drinking. It's not in an illegal way and she likes seeing what everyone's order is.

She's still stuck in high school and is ordering Vodka crans and Cosmos, though.

"Yes," she says, tracing a finger around the rim of her glass. "It was quite the journey." She sighs and takes a sip from her drink, refusing to look at him still.

It still hurts every time she starts to look at him.

"So you're not in the army anymore, huh?"

She looks up at him through her lashes occasionally to catch a glimpse of him, just because it's polite to look at someone when you're engaged in a conversation with them.

"No," he tells her, pushing his glass up towards the bartender. "I'm, um, going to school right now, actually." She looks up at him and smiles softly, tucking a look tendril of hair behind her ear.

"That's great," she tells him, her voice soft and sweet. "What are you studying?"

"I, um, just finished my Bachelor's in Music Therapy," he tells her, making her perk up. "And like, in July I'm taking this test so I can start practicing."

Rachel grins at him and moves her arm over to touch his shoulder, giving it a squeeze.

"That's so great, Finn," she tells him, smiling brightly. The last time she had really spoken to him, he didn't know what he wanted to do with his life.

Now, he's about a month away from having a career that she knows he's going to love more than anything else in the entire world.

And she's still alone, without him.

"I'm proud of you," she tells him, actually looking at him when she speaks to him this time. "Really. I am."

They smile at one another for a moment and Finn's the one to break the silence. Rachel doesn't really know what to say from this point.

"So, are you still in New York, or-"

"Yes," she says, taking another sip of her drink. "I'm in a show now, actually."

Finn's eyes get big and he smiles at her. "Wow, Rachel, that's… that's great." She nods politely and smiles at him. "Which show is it?"

"_Evita_," she says, not wanting to sound boastful. "I'm… I'm Evita."

Finn makes this face like he's so proud of her, the same one she had made at him moments earlier, and she feels this horrible feeling in the pit of her stomach.

They've both gotten exactly what they've always wanted without each other.

"Finn," she starts, looking over at him almost mournfully. "You know, I never got the chance to really apologize for what-" Her voice cuts off and she feels sick all of sudden, making her collect herself before continuing. "For what happened between us."

It feels good to confess it, because she knows how horrible it sounds. She's waited seven years to tell someone or anyone about her and Finn, but telling Quinn never seemed to make her feel good enough.

Telling Finn is a whole new feeling that she doesn't know if she's ready to feel yet or not.

"I was immature about the whole thing and it was just… it was messy," she tells him, her voice bitter. "And I just – I've always wanted the chance to apologize to you, but I-"

She stops speaking the moment she feels Finn's lips crash against her own.

For a moment she just sits in her chair and doesn't do anything but feel him lean in to kiss her, letting her feelings settle down and simmer for a moment. She doesn't know if it's because of the alcohol or if it's because of the dance they've shared or if it's something else, but she feels her heart begin to pound in her chest and she leans in to kiss him back, her arms falling over his shoulders, just like how they had been when they were dancing.

The music that plays through the reception hall melts away and she practically slides out of her chair as she leans into him before pulling away from him for a moment.

She looks at him and her eyes meet his for the longest time all night, his hands letting her go.

"I'm sorry," she says softly, adjusting her hair back to the messy knot that it had been in at the nape of her neck. "Finn, I just-"

He moves his hand up to touch her face and she shivers, his fingers tucking her hair behind her ear.

"You're still the most beautiful girl I've ever seen," he tells her, prompting a smile from Rachel.

Part of her feels like all of this is one big joke and that's she's not really at Quinn's wedding. This is all a dream and she's just asleep and in a few more minutes she's going to wake up and not be in the reception hall, and be in her bed instead, back in New York.

Except she's not in a dream. She's Rachel Berry and this is real life, whether she likes it or not.

"Finn, I'm sorry," she tells him, wanting to cry so badly. She can't bring herself to cry, but at the same time she really doesn't want to cry. She feels like her emotions are one long, tight cord inside of her heart that's coiled so tightly that it's on the verge of snapping, and all it's going to take for that to happen is to kiss Finn again.

"I'm sorry for… for e-everything," she tells him, tears prickling her voice. "I…. I still love you, Finn."

She watches him as he begins to smile at her, making her smile. She slowly starts to break down and she can feel herself begin to cry, and later Finn's hand moving up to wick the tears away from her eyes.

He stands up from his barstool and looks at Rachel, almost lovingly, and offers her his hand.

The DJ starts to play a song that she recognizes but can't name, but she smiles at him sweetly, staring up at him with her teary eyes.

"Do you want to dance with me again?"

She stands up from the chair and sniffles softly, taking him by the hand and feeling him wrap her up in an embrace.

"I'd love to," she tells him with a chaste kiss to his lips.

And she does. Because she loves him and he loves her.

And that's really all that matters.


	5. they made a statue of us

**v.  
they made a statue of us**

He kind of regrets taking her out for dinner. Not that it wasn't great, because it was. He took her to her favorite vegan restaurant and bought her a big bouquet of pink roses because he knows that they're her favorite kind of flowers.

He came really close to buying her one of those giant stuffed bears that held a heart that said something stupid, but he knew that it would just end up sitting in the corner of her bedroom.

And he totally didn't want a bear staring at them when they – you know. A stuffed bear, but it was basically the same thing.

But their dinner went really well and Rachel's been talking basically the entire time, which is normal. He likes hearing her talk. He's only really been able to hear her talk over the phone and on Skype for the past month.

They've fixed everything for the most part. They decide that the best way to foster a long distance relationship is just to have constant contact with one another, no matter what the cost.

He kind of likes how she takes everything so seriously and writes him actual letters sometimes that she sprays with her perfume. He likes her big, bubbly letters and how she dots her i's with little hearts and how she writes with a pink gel pen. It's so Rachel and she's all his.

It's cold outside. New York gets colder in a smaller amount of time than it normally does. The leaves fall off of all of the trees and the winds get colder and he has to actually bring his winter coat with him when he drives over to see her.

She already has, like, five new winter coats; clean little wool pea coats that come in all of her favorite colors. She's really lucky that she has two dads that spoil her rotten, even after she's moved out of the house.

She isn't wearing one tonight, though. All she's got on is a skirt and a blouse and a blazer. It's pretty fair. It hadn't gotten cold until they had left the restaurant.

"You look kind of cold," he tells her as he looks down at her, interrupting her as she's busy talking about whatever show she's doing with her school this winter or whatever. He doesn't mean to interrupt her, because he knows how much she hates being interrupted, but he can't help but notice how her teeth chatter when she talks and how she's sniffling all of the time.

Rachel just looks up at him and Finn knows that she's trying to act all tough or whatever, but he knows that she'll cave sooner than later.

"No, I'm f-fine," she stammers, bringing her arms up around her chest to give herself an embrace. "It's just gotten windier, that's all."

Finn shakes rolls his eyes and he knows, just because it's Rachel. She's not going to ask him for his coat. She's either waiting for him to be the 'chivalrous' one and offer his own coat to her, or she's actually going to stick it out and not wear a coat until they get back to her apartment.

There's six more blocks until they get there, though.

He shifts around slightly until he starts to pull the sleeves of his coat off of his arms, stopping in the street to drape over Rachel's shoulders.

She totally drowns in it and he knows that she's going to think it smells like cats and the tire shop and whatever other gross smell she could think of, but Rachel doesn't say anything.

"Finn, I don't need-"

"You're freezing, Rach." He shrugs slightly and warms his arms up so as not to get completely cold. He's wearing a pretty warm shirt to begin with. "You're just not willing to admit it."

He hears her snort and he knows that she's just gotten done rolling her eyes, but as they continue walking down the street, he sees her begin to button the bottom buttons of his coat on her small frame, the hem of it almost hanging down to her knees.

She keeps up with him and wraps her arms around his own so that they're linked together, Rachel resting her head against Finn's shoulder.

She doesn't say anything, but Finn knows.

He moves his hand to give her own a squeeze as they turn the corner.

At least now, they're only five blocks away.


	6. i'm drowning slowly, part one

**vi.  
i'm drowing slowly, part one**

He can't think of anything else right now. It's like he's doing everything in his power to make sure that his foot keeps on the gas pedal and his hands remain on the steering wheel.

It's hard to keep his eyes on the road when his wife is sitting next to him, doubled over and wincing in pain.

"It's gonna be okay, Rach," he says over and over again, but it doesn't work. She's still crying and she keeps on shaking her head every time he tells her that, which only makes his heart hurt even more.

Finn knows that Rachel's the most upset at herself. He knows that she's scared and she hurts and she wants to be at home and in bed, where she feels safe.

Instead she's in the front seat of his Volvo and she's grabbing the small bump of her stomach, unable to look at Finn.

He feels his stomach tighten so much that it feels like it's going to like, rip in two or something.

Of course, he knows that Rachel feels a hell of a lot worse than he does.

-x-

It had started about an hour after he had gotten back from work. Rachel had been cooking some big vegan casserole and everything was actually really nice and seemed perfect and happy.

And then he heard Rachel drop the casserole dish and heard the sharp noise it made as it crashed against the floor, the sound of her sobs quickly following afterwards.

It was the way she fell down to the ground with the dish and held onto her stomach tightly that scared him the most.

All she could do was cry and pinch her eyes shut and he knew that she was in some kind of severe pain by the way she pointed to her stomach and was unable to answer any of the questions he asked her.

That was when they ran down the eight flights of stairs outside to his car in the lot of the back of the _apartment complex and Finn drove as fast as he could through the gridlock traffic of New York City to_ get Rachel to the hospital.

-x-

When they get there everything turns into a blur for him, and it's like the pain slowly starts to go away as he sees a gaggle of nurses surround Rachel with little explanation and sit her down in a wheelchair, watching as she gets wheeled into the back of some hallway.

He thinks of the spilled casserole on the floor of their kitchen and he wonders if Rachel's left the oven on and he tries so hard to think of something other than his wife and _their _baby, but he can't.

No matter how mundane he tries to make his thoughts, he thinks of Rachel and if it's something he had done.

The whole ambiance of the hospital scares him. The clinical green and the smell of sterilization and seeing people run around in hospital gowns makes him feel like he's in some kind of _Twilight Zone _episode or something.

He knows that this is bad. Finn remembers the doctor that Rachel sees telling them that if she ever experiences any kind of pain in her abdomen while she's pregnant that she should go to the hospital immediately, but he's never thought that the pain would be bad in the way that it's been.

Maybe, like, a dull, growing pain or something, but never enough to make Rachel stop everything she's doing and fall to the ground in complete pain.

That, and he knows everything from that book Rachel's been reading non-stop since they've found out that they're pregnant; that _What To Expect When You're Expecting _book or whatever.

Judging by that book, Rachel's not supposed to be feeling this way at all.

He's trying to piece everything together when a nurse walks out from the hallway that Rachel's disappeared behind, wringing her hands nervously.

"Mr. Hudson?"

Finn stares blankly at her for a moment before nodding slowly at her. He doesn't know what to feel anymore, like he's been unplugged or something.

The nurse smiles weakly and waves her hand towards the hallway.

"Come with me," she says, and Finn follows after her down the hallway that still scares him.

He feels completely powerless, and he knows that's what scares him the most.

The fact that there's nothing he can do anymore is what scares him more than anything else in the world.

-x-

There's Rachel in this hospital bed and they've dressed her in one of those paper hospital gowns that makes her already look like she's sick or is about to go under surgery or something else that isn't what she should be doing at the moment, and there's a handful of nurses checking her vital signs or something – at least that's what it looks like when they're staring at machines that Rachel's hooked up to.

Rachel's doctor is standing next to Rachel and speaking to her as she lies in the plastic bed that looks like it's more than uncomfortable.

Finn feels his mouth go dry and he doesn't know if he's supposed to feel like crying or like screaming or like throwing up. He's never seen his wife with tubes in her arms and hooked up to a machine that's supposed to show her heart rate or something.

He doesn't remember exactly. He just knows that it isn't good.

A small smile graces Rachel's face as she sees Finn walk into the room, but it's more out of relief than it is out of happiness. Her eyes are red and puffy from crying ever since collapsing in the kitchen, her hair matted around her head in a now messy ponytail that hangs down her shoulder.

Finn walks over to Rachel and he wants to hug her, but he knows that he can't. Not now, anyway. Not as long as she's hooked up to all of these different machines.

The doctor nods politely at Finn and he's allowed to grab Rachel by the hand as she lies in the bed that separates him and the doctor.

Rachel's doctor is a tall, blonde woman with a pale complexion and steely blue eyes. She looks menacing without even having to say anything.

"Finn," she says softly, acknowledging him. The sound of the doctor's voice is enough for Finn to squeeze Rachel's hand tighter.

"Mr. and Mrs. Hudson, I'm not exactly sure how to put this," she begins, making Finn's chest tighten.

He's not an idiot. No one starts a sentence like that and ends it with good news. Especially not in a hospital.

"Normally, abdominal cramping during any pregnancy is a bad sign, but during the first trimester of the pregnancy, some cramping can be overlooked." The doctor sighs and pushes a wisp of hair away from her eyes. "However, due to the severity of your symptoms and your family history, and the bleeding that followed…" Her voice trails off after it breaks off, and Finn can already feel Rachel's nails dig into his hand.

She's already crying and the doctor looks like she doesn't have to say anything else. Finn feels like the world's stopped spinning and he can't speak or breathe anymore.

"I'm so sorry."

There's a deafening silence that fills the room, Rachel's cries not audible yet. She just pinches her face and he knows that when she cries like that it's when it's the worst.

He can see the tears run down her cheeks and he wants to do something, anything, to make her feel better.

The only problem is, he feels just as horrible.

The doctor tells them that with her mother's history of having problems conceiving and pure chance that the perfect storm had been created, and that it's not the worst, really. She tells them that 'a first trimester miscarriage is the best kind of miscarriage,' the oxymoron slipping from her lips and making Rachel begin to sob once more.

Finn squeezes her hand and she keeps her eyes shut, trying to regulate herself as best as she can.

They're offered numbers to therapists that specialize in miscarriages and pregnancy trauma before they're given a moment to themselves.

Neither of them says anything for a long time. Finn squats down so that he can see Rachel and pushes her hair from her eyes, making her shake her head and cry even more.

"It's my fault," she tells him through her tears. She chokes and wheezes on her words, almost unable to make anything out as she cries. "I had to have done something wrong, or I stood to close to the microwave, or I-"

Finn cuts her off and wipes her tears away from her face with his thumb. "Rachel, it's not your fault," he assures her, wanting to climb into the bed with her. It's unfair that there's a barrier of plastic hospital bed between them. He wants to hold her and hug her and tell her that everything's going to be okay, even when he's not sure if it is or not.

She shakes her head and sighs, swallowing her tears. "You heard what the doctor said. Maybe I'm not supposed to be a mother, Finn. Maybe this is just some cruel joke that's supposed to teach me a lesson."

"No," he tells her, shaking his head. "Rach, that's not it at all." He sighs and feels himself ready to cry, but he's not going to. He's supposed to be the strong one through all of this. He's supposed to be Rachel's support system. "Rachel, this isn't your fault at all. It just… the timing wasn't right, okay?" He leans in and kisses her temple, his fingers running over her hand.

She sighs and opens her eyes, unable to look at Finn.

"But it was supposed to be our _baby, _Finn. Our baby that we got to have and take care of." She sighs and looks down at him, tears welling in her eyes. "Why do we have to do this?"

She starts to cry again and Finn grabs her hand tighter than before, sighing. He doesn't know and he doesn't expect to know, but he wants to tell Rachel that everything's going to be okay.

They stay in the hospital room and Finn stays down on his haunches, stroking Rachel's hair and reassuring her that everything will be fine, but it's more for himself, really.

He doesn't know if everything's going to be okay, no matter how badly he wants it to be.


	7. i'm drowning slowly, part two

**vii.  
i'm drowning slowly, part two**

Everything feels numb. Rachel doesn't know what to feel anymore. She feels disconnected and broken and everything around her as she knows it shatters, like someone's thrown a giant rock through a stained glass window, and now she's left to pick up all of the pieces.

She knows that Finn's trying to help – she _knows_ that he is. But every time he tries to tell her that things are going to be back to normal or he grabs her hand or makes an attempt to hold her in his arms when she slides into bed (much later than him), it only makes everything worse.

She looks at him and thinks of the baby that could have been, and it kills her. She doesn't want it to be this way.

She wishes that she could have Finn hold her and kiss her and tell her that everything's going to be alright without feeling like he had done something wrong or had hurt her.

But it doesn't work. Nothing seems to work anymore with her.

-x-

She had quit her job in the show she was in when she had found out that she was pregnant, so she decides that she needs to find some other job to help pay the rent and other expenses.

(She refuses to go to therapy for this. It's just a hiccup and she can get over it on her own. Besides, seeing a therapist is the furthest thing from cheap.)

Finn gets her a job at the school he teaches at. The preceding theatre director had broken her job a week ago and Rachel seems to fit the bill wonderfully for the director of their winter musical, and it pays moderately well, so she takes it.

They're doing a production of _Company _and she's pretty sure that saves it right before their theatre department falls to shambles. If anything, that makes her feel good about everything. Knowing that their show is going to spectacular and make the audience talk afterwards is a good thing to have in her life. The constant of hearing The Ladies Who Lunch and Being Alive belted out at rehearsals every night is consistent. It keeps her going on the days that she needs it.

But on the days when it doesn't do enough, she turns into the recluse of a woman that Finn wants to console and who doesn't want to be around her husband.

-x-

Finn feels Rachel crawl into bed with him one night, but he knows by now that he shouldn't bother trying to talk to her anymore. At least not now. Sometimes he can squeeze in a conversation over dinner or when Rachel's sitting on the couch staging some scene for the show she's directing, but they don't talk the way they used to.

Getting into bed with Rachel and just sitting there, talking about whatever used to be the highlight of his everything. She would always take all of the blankets they had and spread them out across the bed over the comforter, ducking underneath them and wrapping herself up in Finn's arms, telling him all about her rehearsals and how exciting it is to be an actual Broadway star, and he would just listen, glad to hear her so happy.

Every once and a while he would tell her a story about his students and how cool he thought it was to be a music teacher, and she would just kiss him on the nose and remind him that he was doing so many good things for everyone around him and all of the students were ridiculous if they didn't think he was the best teacher in the entire building.

When Rachel had gotten pregnant, they would spend their time talking about the baby and waiting for Rachel's stomach to grow and to feel the baby kicking around inside of her, or they would argue over names.

Rachel was positive that they would be having a girl, and Finn thought they would be having a boy.

Part of him wanted a boy, just so he could be a really cool dad. He wanted to take his son to baseball games and fishing and whatever else the clichéd things that fathers did with their sons.

By the time everything had happened, Finn and Rachel didn't even know if they were having a boy or a girl.

She gets into bed later than he does. She's always been coming to bed late ever since they lost the baby. Finn sits with her on the couch in the living room and she's either too busy reading a book or staring blankly at the TV to go to bed when he does.

Finn doesn't really mind. The doctor told him that she's going to take her own time to cope with everything, and he totally gets that.

There's just a part of him – a _big _part of him that wants to do everything he can to make sure that she feels the way she used to about things. He misses how she smiles at everything and how about a week ago she was the Rachel he had fallen in love with; smart and quick and playful and _strong,_ and now it's like everything's been taken away from her.

He can feel the sheets shift on top of him in the bed and he turns to face Rachel, who's facing him. Her eyes are shut and she looks tired. She's looked tired all of the time, lately.

"Rach?"

She grumbles something under her breath and shifts herself around.

"What is it?"

He watches her as her eyes slowly open and she stares at him, making his chest swell.

He knows how much she's hurting because he feels the same way, and all he wants to do is reach out and hold her or something, just to tell her that everything's going to be alright, but he knows she doesn't want that.

He reaches over and pushes her bangs from her eyes, offering her a smile.

"Oh, um, I just wasn't sure if it was you."

He hears her laugh sweetly for a moment and it sounds like music to his ears. He hasn't heard her laugh in what seems like forever.

"Why would it be anyone else?"

"I don't know. I just worry."

She looks at him and for the first time in a long time, she smiles – only it's not one of the forced smiles she's had for the past week or so, but a real smile that makes him feel the way he's always felt when she smiles.

Finn turns over in bed and rolls onto his back, sighing.

He's surprised when he feels Rachel curl up next to him, pressing a kiss to his cheek.

"You know that I love you, right?" She nuzzles his neck and he makes a face when he looks down at her, not sure what to feel. "So much."

He feels her burrow herself into his side like she always used to, making him unsure as to what to feel about everything.

"I love you too," he says, his voice soft. He wraps his arm around her and holds her close and they fall asleep like that, Finn unsure of everything.

At least Rachel's getting back to normal. He's missed her.

-x-

There's a small period of time where things start to go smoothly. Rachel has to continue going to doctor's office – they say that they need to perform routine checkups to make sure that she's completely cleared, or whatever, and Finn knows that it sucks. Every time she comes home from them she's not herself for about an hour or so, but she changes back after a while.

He likes going to work in the morning and then seeing Rachel when he's done for the day. Sometimes she comes in during his lunch hour and sits with him in the teachers' lounge with some lunch she's packed while she's at home.

Some of the other teachers at the school catch on after a while when they realize that Rachel's baby bump is no longer and remember that all Finn's been able to talk about is the fact that they had been expecting a baby.

One of the older teachers goes up to Rachel one day when she's eating with Finn and offers her some apology that Finn knows is going to send Rachel into the bathroom in tears.

Finn gets up and walks towards the coffee machine, wanting to avoid the initial conversation as best as he can. He likes to think that he's always done a pretty good job at consoling Rachel through her problems, anyway.

"Miss Hudson, I just wanted to give you my deepest apologies for your loss," the older woman says, wringing her hands nervously. "I think that you're a strong and courageous woman for doing what you're doing right now."

Rachel just stares at the woman for what seems like forever while Finn prepares for the worst. He knows what Rachel's like when she gets sad or angry – or the worst; when she gets both sad and angry at the same time.

She looks pleasant and like she's trying to fight back tears or something, but she doesn't do anything.

"Thank you," she says politely, nodding her head.

The woman offers Rachel a wider smile than before and Finn feels relieved.

"It's um, it's d-difficult, but Finn and I are managing." She laughs, even. "They say everything in life happens for a reason, and I'm just going on thinking that all of this happened for a reason." She smiles sweetly at the woman and they exchange a few more words, but Finn doesn't pay attention to them.

Maybe Rachel's actually doing alright with this entire situation. Maybe she's finally started to cope with everything and she isn't denying that it happened anymore. There were like, five stages of grief and stuff, weren't there? Maybe Rachel was finally finished grieving over the loss of their baby and had reached the final stage – acceptance, or something.

The woman walks away and Finn walks back over to Rachel at the table, sitting down next to her quietly.

"What did she say, Rach?"

Rachel turns around in her chair and looks into her salad, taking a stab at it with her fork. "Oh, nothing. She was just asking about the baby."

The way she's so casual about everything frightens him a bit. She's not supposed to be this careless about this problem. She's only been crying about it nonstop for the past few weeks.

Finn takes a long sip of his coffee, watching as the bell rings and the leftover teachers in the room disperse. He has a free hour next hour, so he can stay in the teacher's lounge with Rachel for a good while longer.

"Oh." He sighs and looks down in his lap. Talking about their baby is still a sore subject for him. He decides that it always will be. "Um, Rachel, I'm sorry, I didn't know-"

"It's alright," she tells him, picking at a nail. "Really, it's…"

Her voice trails off, sounding like it's caught on a sob.

Finn looks at her, concerned. She doesn't look like she's doing alright anymore, or at least she doesn't look like she did a few moments ago. She gets up and turns around so that she's standing directly in front of him, worrying the hem of her skirt in her hands.

"F-Finn," she starts, her voice catching on a sob. He can see the tears piquing in her eyes and his chest starts to ache. He hates seeing her upset. Seeing Rachel upset is one of the first feelings he knows.

"Is everything going to get better?"

Finn looks at her and she's basically wheezing, trying to catch her breath and her lip quivering as she does her best to keep herself from crying. He sets his coffee down on the table and stands up to hold her in his arms, squeezing her tightly.

Rachel buries her face in Finn's shoulder and shuts her eyes, holding onto him tightly as she begins to cry. She's crying harder than she's ever cried before in her entire life, even harder than she had been crying in the hospital.

Finn holds onto her as he feels her nails dig into his back. Her tears begin to dampen his sweater and he rubs her back, doing everything he knows how in order to console her.

He's never seen her this upset.

Of course, they've never been in a situation quite like this before.

The bell rings for fifth period in the background and the chatter of students can be heard in the halls, but all Finn cares about is Rachel, collapsed in his arms and destroying herself more and more with each tear she sheds.

He pulls away from her and looks at Rachel, his hands on her shoulders.

He wishes he knew what to say to her. She just looks at him and her eyes are red and puffy from crying and he knows that he should be able to swoop in and save the day, but he can't.

He doesn't know how to save Rachel, and it's what kills him more than anything else.

"Rachel, you can't keep all of this bottled up," he tells her, pushing her hair from her eyes. She continues to cry and he wipes the tears from her face, making her tip her head down. "I mean, the doctor said that we would have problems and stuff and we would feel like we had done something… _wrong, _but we didn't, Rach."

She looks at him bitterly and shakes her head, her hands turning into little fists on either side of her. "I don't care what all of the doctors say, Finn." She turns around and starts to pace around the room, Finn unsure if she's furious or upset anymore.

"All of the doctors told me that we were going to have a healthy baby, too, didn't they? They didn't bother to tell me that they were just kidding around and that I wouldn't get to have my baby like everyone else does."

She turns away from him and leans against the counter by the coffee maker, tears still running down her face. "I don't care what the doctors say anymore. They weren't right the first time, were they?" She starts to cry again, this time louder than the first time. Her breathing becomes more labored and Finn walks up behind her, afraid to touch her.

He wraps his arms around her waist and she flinches slightly before she reclines back into him and rests her head against his shoulder, still crying.

"I just want everything to go back to the way it was," she tells him, her eyes falling shut. "I don't want to have to worry about having a baby or finding a new job or any of those things." Her crying becomes softer and she feels Finn holding her closer, making her turn around so that she can face him.

Finn runs a hand through her hair, kissing the top of her head gently. "I love you, Rachel," he starts, burying his nose in her hair. She smells like vanilla and lilacs; like she always has. "And you… you can't let this one thing get to you the way it has, okay?" He kisses her again and her sobs continue; softer than they had been.

"You have done so much, Rach, and not a lot of other people can say that they've done what you've done." She stops crying and wipes her eyes, hands streaking her makeup across her face. "I mean, you moved out here to go to school with Kurt and you worked at that pizza place so you could help pay the rent while you were in school, and then when you graduated and your dads' begged you to go back home you didn't, because you told them that you would never, ever go home until you got to play Evita on Broadway?"

Rachel smiles softly and closes her eyes, tears still rolling down her cheeks. Finn grabs her by the hand and squeezes it softly, kissing her on the cheek.

"And you've been on Broadway, Rach. You've been on Broadway and you can sing like no one else can and you're the most talented person in the entire world."

She rolls her eyes and looks down at the floor away from Finn.

"The most talented person in the entire world who put her career on hold so she could have the baby that never came."

Finn stops her and shakes his head from side to side, brow furrowing across his face.

"Rachel, you can't say that," he tells her, a hand moving to the side of her face, a thumb stroking her cheek gently. "Do you have any idea what you're doing for these kids right now? Without you, Rach, there wouldn't be a winter musical. And can you imagine how they feel, working with you?"

He rubs her shoulders and she sighs softly. She's reminded of her own years in high school with Finn, and she can only imagine how she would have reacted if someone, anyone from New York, Broadway of all places, were to go in and direct their winter musical.

Finn looks down at her, tucking her hair behind her ears. "So maybe, you know, everything sucks for a reason, okay? Maybe everything gets really fucked up sometimes just because it's some way of showing us that everything doesn't have to go according to plan in order for us to still be happy, you know?"

Rachel looks up at him, worry across her face as she watches him. He looks like he's about to burst into tears himself, but she knows that he won't. He's her Finn; her big, strong Finn.

She can see the tears beginning to spring from his eyes the longer she looks at him. She knows that he's trying to be strong for her, of all things, and she wishes that he wouldn't.

"I mean, it was our _baby_, Rach," he manages to choke out, tears beginning to flow freely. He squeezes her hand and she starts to cry again, feeling Finn hold her close. "It was our baby that we're never, ever going to see. Ever."

Rachel sobs into his chest and grabs his shirt, crying hysterically. She can feel Finn begin to compose himself and pull away from her, stroking her hair.

"But the way I see it, Rach, no matter what happens, I'll always have you," he tells her, collecting himself. "And if I have you, then I'll be the happiest guy in the entire world."

She wipes her eyes and smiles at him, standing up on her toes to kiss him.

"I love you so much, Finn," she tells him, throwing her arms over his shoulders. She knows that he's right, after all. No matter how badly it hurts, she'll still have him.

He pushes her hair from her eyes and kisses her back, feeling like he's holding her closer than he's ever held her before.

"I love you too, Rach," he tells her, promising himself that he'll never let go of her.

He never wants to let go of her, and she never wants to let go of him. He figures that somehow, no matter what happens, they'll manage to stay afloat.

And they do. No one can really see why they wouldn't.


End file.
